MOVIE REVIEW: 'Beguiled' a smoldering, suspenseful battle of the sexes

Friday

Jun 30, 2017 at 6:30 AM

Director Sofia Coppola's take of Thomas Cullinan's 1966 novel is more than a tale about lust. It's also about female empowerment and religious hypocrisy.

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledger

In remaking Don Siegel’s sex-crazed Civil War tale, “The Beguiled,” Sofia Coppola accomplishes the difficult task of staying faithful to a story of females gone wild at a Southern boarding school while also making it intriguingly her own. Where Siegel’s 1971 version of Thomas Cullinan's 1966 novel arrived adorned in such taboo accoutrements as incest, lesbianism and white-on-black flirtations, Coppola takes a decidedly more feminist approach in making it not just a tale about lust, but also about female empowerment and even more daringly – religious hypocrisy.

She also offers the women – and girls – of Miss Farnsworth’s Seminary a more potent aphrodisiac in Colin Farrell’s portrayal of John McBurney, the wounded Union soldier who sets the female hormones stirring once he is deposited on the steps of the Virginia school run by the allegedly prim and proper Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman). In Siegel’s version, McBurney was played by a young and virile Clint Eastwood, in one of the legend’s most unfairly overlooked movies. He was good - in fact, it was one of his best, but he had a difficult time fleshing out the seedier aspects of McBurney’s enigmatic personality.

That’s hardly the case for Farrell, who puts his deep, dark eyes to proper use in convincingly bringing out the worst in McBurney, once his weeks of calculated flirtations with everyone from Martha to the headmaster’s assistant, Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), to teenage horndog, Alicia (Elle Fanning), come back to bite him in his convalescing leg. And instead of being a conscientious objector like Eastwood’s character, Farrell is a vastly more interesting poor, Irish immigrant so broke he joined the Union Army just to make money as a mercenary.

He’s not really beholding to either the North or the South. He just wants to stay alive. And being secretly harbored behind the school’s iron gates, hidden away from vengeful Confederate soldiers, is his best means of achieving that goal. So let the seductions begin, a strategy that the lonely, horny females eat up as voraciously as they do the house specialty – mushrooms. But instead of focusing on sex, a la the original, Coppola is more interested in the politics of jealousy and deceit. And the person the ladies betray most is the Christian God to whom they profess their devotion 24/7. Well, they do prior to John’s arrival. After that, desires of the flesh take precedent over salvation of the soul.

In many ways, the sexual awakenings of the five girls, roughly ages 11 to 17, mirror those of the five sisters in Coppola’s first film, “The Virgin Suicides,” which also starred Dunst. Both movies deal with cloistered females stumbling down a dangerous path, confused and curious, unable to understand these strange forbidden wants and needs. It’s a common theme for Coppola, who even in her 40s is still trying to work out why girls can’t enjoy sex guilt-free – just like the boys. But that’s about as far as the subtext goes in a film that thrives more on its subtle eroticism than it does its intellectuality. And, boy, does it get hot.

Coppola wisely forgoes the creepiness of the original, which had Eastwood passionately kissing 11-year-old Pamelyn Ferdin on the lips. About as racy as Farrell gets is a discrete shot of him embracing – horizontally – a fully clothed Elle Fanning. Compare that to Eastwood’s graphic sex scene with a completely naked Jo Ann Harris, who played the same role in the original. Except for the soapy sponge bathes and a scene where Farrell rips off the top of Dunst’s frock in a bit of depraved intercourse, the sex is more like a tease. Such as when McBurney moves his lips within an inch of Martha’s, then quickly jumps back when they’re suddenly interrupted. You wouldn’t think it, but Coppola’s covert style is far more effective than Siegel’s in-you-face mode.

The other noticeable absence, and one that’s been stirring controversy, is the lack of any black actors in a Civil War story set in 1864 Virginia. The film explains this by noting that all the slaves have run away. But it’s hard to forget those erotic scenes of Hallie (Mae Mercer), Martha’s servant, shaving Eastwood. Muy caliente!!! Coppola has said she axed – and rightly so – the character because the role is both a stereotype and a distraction from the central theme about a war that never ends: the battle of the sexes. In this instance, it’s not important who wins. It’s how they go about it. And let’s just say it not very lady-like. Thank God!THE BEGUILED (R for some sexuality.) Cast: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Colin Farrell. Grade: B

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